The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 35: “Caemlyn”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

Finally, finally, finally, finally, Mat and Rand make it to Caemlyn via a ride from the Very Friendly Bunt. Bunt kicks them out of his carriage and advises Rand to either hide his sword, sell it, or just get rid of it. Not wanting to really do any of that, Rand decides, for now, to hide it under his North Face jacket until he can find a better solution.

Caemlyn is huge; possibly the largest city that these hayseeds will ever come across. Mat is overwhelmed and starts losing his shit about how they aren’t safe from the Fades and how all their friends are dead. Rand slaps him across the face until he breaks all his teeth and tells him to get it together, man! Everything’s going to be fine! A city as large as this one, nobody will find nobody. You can bet your butt on that.

Along the way, Rand notices that anyone with a sword has the hilt wrapped in either red or white silk. Rand buys some red silk with a white cord and covers the heron hilt. This is likely going to be important later. Perhaps the silk represents a faction that Rand is accidentally pledging loyalty to, and it’s going to turn out to be the Caemlyn equivalent of NAMBLA.

Before Gleeman Thom “died”, he told the two of them to make their way to an inn called The Queen’s Blessing as soon as possible once they reach Caemlyn. Mat and Rand spend a good chunk of time asking people around town for directions until they happen upon it. The inn is run by Basel Gill, a fat guy who knows Thom from old times. He suggests that Thom, like Michael Malloy, is very hard to kill, nodding to the audience that Thom is still very much alive somewhere. Gill has a tense relationship with Thom, as does the whole city of Caemlyn for that matter, since he not only slept with the queen but also ditched her to deal with matters with respect to his nephew. This led to a bounty on Thom’s head, which is still in play, so he best not show his multi-mustached face around these parts if he knows what’s good for him.

The inn is absolutely crowded and rooms cost ten arms and three legs, but since Mat and Rand are friends with Thom, the innkeeper decides to let them stay gratis for now. Just don’t piss him off.


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Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 8 – “Woman”

* Part 1 of 9 of Vol. 2 – “Confluence” *

Welcome to Manga Cum Loudly Presents: Death Note, Vol. 2, Chapter 8: “Woman”! Yes, that’s right, in Manga World the new volumes don’t reset the chapter numbers. This is a brand new batch of chapters to slog through, my friends. In the previous installment, which is also the conclusion of the previous volume, Raito tricks the American FBI agent, who has been following him around for the last week, into showing him his FBI identification card. He has the very American name of “Raye Penber”. This all occurs during a bus hijacking, a situation that Raito completely orchestrated with the Death Note. In summary, Raito avoids further suspicion by looking like a normal kid on his way to a normal amusement park for a normal date, and throws Penber off the trail further by making the hijacker able to see Ryuuku and losing his mind before stumbling out of the bus and getting hit by a car.

MANGA!

So, with the FBI agent’s full name in his hot little hand, Raito will likely kill this guy even though this guy no longer suspects Raito anyway. Time to see how this breaks bad even further.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8
Written by: Tsugumi Ohba
Illustrated by: Takeshi Obata
“Woman”

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

We pick up exactly where we last left off, not even missing a beat, making the fact that this is a new volume completely arbitrary and needless. The victims of the bizarre bus hostage situation disembark. RAYE PENBER leaves directly ahead of Raito.

Nothing like a crisis to cause a couple of knuckleheads to form a tight bond! Penber gets the kid’s attention before he fully leaves the bus. “Hey, to tell you the truth, the reason I’m in Japan is I’m on a secret mission…”

These English translations leave a lot to be desired, such as reasonable pacing and realistic attitudes toward shit like FBI agents telling kids that they’re on secret missions.

Raito understands, and he promises not to tell anyone, especially his father, who is on a secret mission himself, by the way. Really clandestine stuff. Abu Ghraib prison level scandals and other similar monkeyshines.

Anyway, son, Penber has to boogie before the fuzz arrives. Take it sleeaazy. He walks away while Raito glares at him.

“Just as I calculated,” Raito thinks in the eerie, psychopathic font that always shows up when he starts thinking his eerie, psychopathic thoughts, “I don’t want the police to know I had an encounter with an FBI agent. If Dad found out, L would know too.”

That leaves one option! Gotta murder the sumbitch! Listen, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Better him than me, Raito always says. Penber doesn’t suspect him one bit anymore! Perfect time to write in the ol’ Death Note. Something like “Raye Penber sits on a garden gnome and tears his anus”, which would be fun.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

That’s a smooth icebreaker, kiddo. You’ll be in her pants in no time.

Don’t forget that Raito is supposed to be on a date! Now that the horribly traumatic experience is over, maybe a day at the park isn’t such a great ideas anym–

“Don’t you dare!” she yells at his bewildered expression, “We’re almost at Space Land, let’s just go!”

Ugh, women. Raito has figured everything out so far, has always stayed two steps ahead, but this girl? Forget it. Emotional and irrational! Am I right, fellas?!?!?

Ryuuku chuckles at Raito’s misfortune. Have fun at Space Land, loser.

Meanwhile, the focus of the story is now on Raye Penber, the unfortunately-named Japanese-American FBI agent. He returns, simply downtrodden, back to his hotel room where a lady is waiting for him! A wife? A girlfriend? An escort? All three and then some?? “Did something happen at work today? You sound tired,” she says with a sultry side-eye.

Now Penber says “I was caught in a random busjacking”, but my mind instantly saw “I was caught jacking on the bus”, so that tells you exactly how my brain operates. I’m a 35-year-old engineer with children. How miserable is that? Count your own blessings once in a while.

First this busjacker was a bankjacker! Just two days ago he robbed a Bank of America! …Japan Branch. “Japan’s become a dangerous country,” Penber says with a sigh. His wife/girlfriend/prostitute looks worried. Raye was on a bus during a bus jacking? That’s too goddamned dangerous. He should be working from home marketing UNIQLO clothing stores in Chicago and playing Dance Dance Revolution during his lunch breaks.

“Is he dead?” she asks.
“Yeah, probably. I decided it wasn’t a good idea to get involved, so I didn’t stick around to see what happened afterwards…” he responds trailing off. Didn’t stick around to see what happened afterwards?? The dude got hit by a car WHILE YOU WERE STILL ON THE BUS. YOU WERE WATCHING THROUGH THE WINDOW. *knocks on Penber’s head with skull-breaking force* HELLOOO IN THERE???

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

First a lunatic jacks a bus full of people and then someone dies?? Something’s fishy here!

Awfully suspicious, though, don’t you think? She needles him a little bit about this. “I mean, you were following someone when you got on the bus, right? And now that criminal is likely dead…”

Rub a couple of brain cells together, Penber! Get those think-juices gushing!

“Look,” he begins with a visage of misogynistic scorn, “it’s true you were an outstanding FBI agent, but now you’re just my fiancée. You’re not an agent anymore.”

Fucking wow.

She backs off because women are submissive in manga without exception. “It’s ok, don’t worry about it,” he says sweetly, “Once we start a family you’ll be so busy that you won’t even remember that you were once an agent, and there won’t be any time for your old habits.”

Fucking WOW. Holy shit, dude. Jump off a bridge. Raito has your name. You’re donezo.

Meanwhile, back at Casa de Raito, his giant Japanese Joker friend leers over his shoulder while he flips through his sacred notebook of pain and skulls. When asked if Raito intends to write Penber’s name in the book, he responds with a vague “Nope. I’ll write his name… yeah, next week.”

Since it would be suspicious if he wrote his name right here, right now. The guy can still be useful! He can… uh… tell me who else is in town from the FBI! Yeah. I’ll just invite him over for a game of Chutes and Ladders and he can tell me all of his secrets! We’re buddies now, you know.

Ryuuku’s response to this is a big “?”, which happens a lot. Too much. This death god sure isn’t on the ball that often.

“But for now it’s time for another prisoner to keep L company,” he smiles, likely devolving this series into a predictable episodic cycle of killing-a-guy and making-L-spin-his-wheels for dozens of chapters to come!

Immediately, he sends L on another goose chase, as promised. Watari informs L that there’s been another victim, and this one also wrote a suicide note just like that other guy from the thing! Watari sends him the note. It says a lot of stuff; that part doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the first letter of every line spells out the word “reapers”.

L discovers this in a matter of nanoseconds. “Are you trying to tell me that reapers exist, Kira?” L muses out loud. He instructs Watari to keep every police eyeball on the prisons because more prisoners might write notes, I guess. Maybe notes where the first letter of every line spells out “CORN POPS”.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

Where WTF now means “What the FBI?”

Over at the Headquarters of Bumbling Through Figuring Out Why People Are Dying, Mr. Raito’s Dad has to figure out why FBI agents are dying now. Eight FBI agents in the last week have succumbed to MYOCARDIAL INFARCTIONS! Also known as *thumbs through Garfield Goes Hog Wild: His 70th Book* heart attacks! And there is evidence that these agents were also monitoring the Japanese police. You know, making sure they weren’t kneeling on any necks or anything.

Watari eavesdrops on this dramatic conversation and telephones FBI CENTRAL hurf hurf hurf! They tell L that they are unable to get in contact with every single FBI agent prowling around the Tokyo region. Kira snuffed them all out!

Shit! Shit shit shit! Oh god! The stakes are so high! Almost like there’s some sort of note that causes death!

“Did any of the agents know each other’s faces?” L asks the FBI boss man chief guy, and FBI boss man chief guy has an answer to this. “…not until yesterday…”

Aha! A breakthrough in the case! Agents who didn’t know what other agents looked like until yesterday had, in fact, learned about what other agents looked like yesterday. Riveting.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

The talking orb, with respect to a country with 125 million people, wants a full list of “all the friendlies”. And we’re supposed to interpret this as…not sexual??

L determines that Kira got in touch with “that agent” and got the information he needed. What a huge SNAFU! Someone needs to get hella fired for such a blunder. Get me assistant director WALTER SKINNER so I can serve him his own ass in a chafing dish.

But the crazy part is that the FBI chief man boss guy head honcho received, from every single agent, a request for a full list of agents. He fulfilled the request and sent the file to the first four, then asked them to pass it along to the rest of them. There’s the SNAFU right there, bro. What a dumb thing to do. Here I am playing FBI armchair quarterback, but that sounds like a dumb thing to do to me. What do I know, though? I’m not a fucking high-ranking FBI official.

FBI boss has the heebie-jeebies. He wants to call off the investigation. No more FBI involvement. This is crazy go-nuts, dude. Some real sick stuff here, and he’s seen a lot. So many pedophilia rings busted. So many private pedophilia islands infiltrated. So many pedophile ice cream trucks ransacked for Rocky Road. It was fine when it was just criminals, but now there’s real people getting dead. Bad juju! See ya.

“Chief, call from Director Yagami of the Japanese police. Line 2,” pipes in his secretary. Christ, that mustached asshole? Fine, send him through, BUT he’s going to tell him that the FBI acted entirely on L’s orders and that any accountability will land directly on him! Heh heh heh. See ya.

L is left speechless. Alone. Cold. Depressed. Suicidal. Hungry. Antsy. Feisty. Surly. Morose. Jaded. Delirious. Lustful. Petulant. Itchy.

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

You incompetent piece of shit. You soggy dumbass.

Director Yagami feels like he’s been punked! The rest of his yesmen team are like “yeah, me too” and “uh huh what a pickle” and “I KNEW we couldn’t trust that guy, he doesn’t even have a full name, it’s just a letter and it’s not even in the Japanese alphabet”.

Well dags, if Kira moved on from killing criminals to killing feds, who knows who’s next? Circus clowns? Hispanic children? Zac Efron?

Oh well, let’s sleep on it! Zzzzzzz. The next morning already! Yawn! What a beautiful day.

Watari annoys L with yet another note from yet another victim. It’s getting pretty old. We’re running out of people on the planet to kill, by my count.

“Kira,” L narrates to himself while clenching a fist in a manner of grim determination, “Your actions are big this time. Chances are you met one of those twelve agents. And you’ve surely left clues!”

Raito celebrates another victory! Time for cake.

I don’t know about you, but I’m moist with anticipation here.

Also, this happened. Here’s the twist we all saw coming four chapters ago:

Death Note, Vol. 2, Ch. 8

Anger! Leeway! Tears! Swirling Emotions! Unfriendly Thoughts! Unhappy Bowels!

Final Thoughts

There are sure a lot of pages and chapters dedicated to doing the same thing over and over again! Someone should put Raito’s hand in a glass of warm water so he can pee his bed.


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Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2 – “Enemies Within”

* Part 2 of 6 of the Green Lantern: Rebirth limited Series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2 – “Enemies Within”! In the previous installment, we pick up where we left off… I suppose! I don’t know where the story left off, but we begin Geoff Johns’ critically epic run of Green Lantern with a reappearance of Hal Jordan and everyone dealing with that. And I do mean everyone. Name a DC hero and they’re dealing with that.

So there was a lot of setup. I recommend just reading the previous issue where I wrote nearly 5,000 words because 1) I have no idea where this is really going to go yet, and 2) That’s a lot of fucking words, Jesus Christ. What was I thinking?

Most importantly, Hal Jordan popped in at the end to say hi to Carol Ferris. That’s the important stuff. She’s like the Lois Lane to Hal Jordan’s Trump-supporting Dean Cain.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2 [January, 2005]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Enemies Within”

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Speaking of Hal Jordan, nothing is sexier than when your crime-fighting swimsuit is SO very skin tight that it contours perfectly to your fuckin’ 8-pack abs. I didn’t even notice the blood on his hands, I was too busy drooling at those meaty muscles.

“It began in the center of the universe over ten billion years ago.”

Hate to break it to you, but everywhere is the center of the universe. I’m kidding. Wherever you are, that’s the center. Or nothing’s the center. Whichever you prefer. But it can’t be this!

“On the planet of OA.”

Oh, is that what the show is about?

“A race of immortals decided to declare themselves the Guardians of the universe.”

Ha, well, there’s certainly a tone to that statement, now isn’t there? Like the universe needed guarding from anyone or anything. The universe can take care of itself as far as I’m concerned! And who am I? Precisely.

Sorry, I’ve only covered one panel so far. I’ll try to hurry this train along.

The Guardians, they made the central green battery and it powers all the green rings. These rings are wielded by the Green Lantern Corps. They’re like the fucking facsist pigs of the DC Universe.

What these Guardians didn’t take into account was that nothing lasts forever. Not even eternity!

Someone somewhere is trying to find this Kyle Rayner guy. Still, I wouldn’t trust any Kyle as far as I could throw him, and almost all of the Kyles I know are way too fat to even be nudged successfully in any direction, let alone thrown.

I digress again! I do that a lot, don’t I? Hee hee hee.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Yo, the only green light that I’d like finding Kyle Rayner is an Avada Kedavra green light to the face, son.

In Highway Mill, New Mexico, a couple of ruffians are poking and prodding a totally fucked-up Kyle Rayner with a stick. “Why hasn’t anyone shown up?” one of the kids asks. “How can they have not seen the crash?”

“I don’t know. Maybe his ship has cloaking or something.”

Rayner is writhing in pain, feeling like using a little Green Lanterny magic to cure what ails him! But, for some reason, he holds back. He doesn’t wanna. He grits his teeth and deals with the pain and feels the blood rise to the tip of his already-engorged penis.

“John told me not to take it for granted,” Rayner says about his power ring as he stares at it with bleeding gums and broken eyeballs, “and not to underestimate its limitations. It’d be so easy to force my will into it. So easy to feel… better. But I can’t.”

Sounds like a personal problem to me, as they say! Rayner grits and grinds again, but there’s too much blood diverted away from his head (and into his other head), so he faints hilariously.

The kids want to try getting him to a doctor, but they hear a faint voice coming from Rayner’s ring: “Parallax. Parallax is coming.”

Oooooh, spooky stuff. The Big Bad Parallax is coming. Alert the Green Lantern Corps so they can throw the Parallax from its car and cut off its last breath with a knee to its fucking neck.

OK, enough of that. Hal Jordan is meeting up with Carol Ferris, remember? “It’s good to see you, Carol,” he says. “Five minutes ago this Tomcat and all the others were rusty piles of junk,” she says. Well, wait, that’s not a “hello” back at all, is it? Rude.

Carol catches on quite quickly that the rusted piles of junk, as well as the cracked concrete and the overgrown weeds, have been fixed and eliminated due to Hal’s involvement. He was always very good at pulling weeds. “It’s beautiful…” she says, congratulating Hal on the weeding.

Hal asks if she remembers their first time on the airstrip. Of course she does! It was her first week on the job! If it hadn’t been, she probably wouldn’t remember, so Hal lucked out here.

She was the only woman, and all the men were quite INTIMIDATED by the boss’ daughter. Everyone except for “Weird” Hal Yankovic, he was calm, cool, collected! And sexually harassful! But she took to it well, for some reason.

“What can I say, Miss Ferris? I like to live dangerously,” Hal tells her with a smile after molesting her verbally.

*record scratch*

HOLD THE PHONE, WET NURSE. Hal Jordan is talking about the first time. The FIRST time, numbnuts. *knocks on Carol’s head* HELLO, MCFLY??!!! HELLLOOO?!?!

“The time we never talk about.”

Oh yeah. That first time. When they are all, like, kids and shit.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Yeah, well, my dad can beat up your dad with one hand tied behind his mistress.

Tragedy time! Hal’s dad threw him his jacket to hold while he flew an airplane. “I hoped one day it would be mine. I wished for it,” remembers Hal Jordan as a fresh-faced, young sprat! A real go-getter sportsfan, that one! Everything’s gonna be allllll riii–

Long story short, WAKOOOOM!, as it is decided a plane crash should sound. Again, throwing in some plane crashes around Geoff Johns seems awfully cruel. Did Johns know what he was getting into here? Yeesh.

Context: dead-sister-plane-crash.html

Jordan’s dad complained about failing torque pins and leaking oil. Ferris’ dad complained about fifteen million dollars and six years of research/development in Jordan’s terrible, incapable hands while investors were watching. We all could be blaming each other until the cows come home! The real victim here is young Carol Ferris, who had to stand there and watch Hal’s dad die in front of him.

“I swore I’d never let go of this jacket,” Hal says all mopey like, wearing the jacket he, apparently, hasn’t removed from his person in 20 years. Carol is feeling a teensy awkward, mostly because they have never really talked about Hal’s father. The whole plane crash thing was weird. Kinda cool. But weird. Unsettling. Disturbing. Kinda cool, though.

What Hal probably never knew is that Carol’s father had Hal’s father on his conscience. Thus, Hal was never allowed in the air himself. Simulations on the ground only! Real flights when he’s 46 years old. Oh wait, he did know that. Ok then.

Hal learned a hard lesson that day: Sacrifice. And sometimes you can’t trust those in charge. OK, that’s two hard lessons. Maybe a hard lesson and an easy lesson.

Haha here I am blah blah blahing, right Carol? Yap yap yap yap yap! Heh. I just came here to tell you that stuff’s really been fucked up lately, and I know I’m acting crazy, and I’ve done things I’m very much not proud of, and I’m not myself anymore, and it goes beyond this Spectre possession or whatever it is. I can’t even trust my own judgment anymore!

So Hal needs to find himself again. Man vs. Man. Oldest story in the book! It’s where God suplexed Adam.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

You can be just like the Heart kid from Captain Planet. That kid was useless as shit.

THE WATCHTOWER. HEADQUARTERS OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA. John Stewart and Green Arrow are just chit-chat talkin’ like a couple of knuckleheads. Arrow Face fingers a ring in his hand, wondering how it can be so powerful, wondering how Hal Jordan could find himself in all these sticky wickets. Here are two examples that he literally mentions: Hal Jordan was once trapped in a cave of gold on Jupiter’s moon. Hal Jordan was blinded by mustard.

Jupiter only has one moon, huh? News to me.

Yellow’s original central battery was completely destroyed, so that’s good. It’s been a while since Green Arrow was in the game. I remember something similar happening in that only Green Lantern story I’ve read so far, but I also remember Sinestro looking like Vincent Price, so maybe my memory isn’t anything to go off on.

Hal gave Green Arrow the ring years ago and it’s never really worked. Stewart offers to charge it up for him. Just plug it in and turn the crank and whatnot, but Green Arrow doesn’t want the responsibility.

Meanwhile, across the room, Batman, Superman, and a woman wearing a top hat, a tuxedo top, and fishnet stockings like a reject from the Magician’s Alliance Strip Club, stare into a large crystal ball. “I’ve got him,” she says, “The Spectre is at Ferris Aircraft. Twenty-five miles outside of Coast City.”

This woman is named Zatanna and she needs to put on some real pants.

“Hal Jordan’s soul has been grafted on to one of the most powerful mystical forces in existence.”

Oh snap! That doesn’t sound good at all, does it! Grafted! Ouch, man.

Good enough for SuperBat and Man Man! They’re going to pay Hal “Spectre” Jordan a visit. Meanwhile, Zatanna… pull a rabbit out of your… uh… hey, J’onn! You keep an eye on Guy Garnder, m’kay? Make sure he doesn’t… stink up the place. More than he already has.

NEW YORK. HEADQUARTERS OF THE JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA. Not Justice League. Justice Society. They’re different, and who cares ultimately?

The next two pages have a group of mofos I don’t know. A guy in a red shirt, green pants, a blue Dracula cape, and an eyemask wants to see Mr. Terrific. His green-tinged daughter tries to hold him back in a “stop it dad ur drunk” manner, but it’s actually because he has a fever. There’s also Doctor Fate and Doctor Mid-Nite, who are a couple of eleventh-rate superheroes if I’ve ever heard anyway. The feverish guy is named Alan, but he wants to help! He feels a tinge of responsibility burbling in his gut! And a little bit of last night’s sweet potato pie. *burp puke*

There’s something here about a guy who shares Alan’s name becoming a killer. I do not care.

What’s going on with the two lovebirds?

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Oh, hello “Married”. I’m Hal! *noogie*

Look Ms. Presumptuous, Hal was never going to ask you to marry him! Silly!

*hides engagement ring back into his pocket*

Look, Toots. Wanna still live together?

And before she has a chance to answer and/or slap the shit out of him, representatives of the Justice League/Society of America show up to discuss with and/or slap the shit out of Hal. A real ambush here. “What are you doing?” Batman asks menacingly. “Talking to a friend,” Hal responds innocently, “What’s wrong? Do you need help, Batman?”

You got some ‘splainin’ to do, Air Jordan. Why did your apartment pop up again in the destroyed Coast City? Why did Guy Gardner turn into a big, meaty fireball? Where is my copy of Pokemon Omega Ruby? Do you have any answers to these questions, Hal, you wrinkled old slut?

Hal is genuinely concerned about the Big Meaty Fireball, but the questions are beginning to bother him already! “I fixed this airfield for Carol,” he says, not answering any questions that were asked of him as he tucks Pokemon Omega Ruby into his pocket near the engagement ring. Batman cracks wise about Hal’s need to fix things all the time, and John Stewart tells Batman to shut the hell up. Then he convulses into a pile of migraines and flies up into the sky.

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Everyone hear me loud and clear: THE FIRST ACE VENTURA WAS MUCH BETTER THAN THE SECOND ACE VENTURA!!!

John Stewart is tired of being the runt of the litter! Time to let everyone know who’s boss! BA-BOOOMMM! That’s the sound of Stewart blasting a whole slew of Justice League members every which way with some green fire! Take that, DC’s Finest!

“John, what are you doing?!? Stop this. Now,” Superman pleads with no teeth because he’d never actually stop anything or kill anyone. Then John hits Superman in the eyeballs with green light and Superman, like a pussy, falls to the ground while his fellow teammates say things like “Superman!” at him.

Carol Ferris is just standing there taking this all in. Just a big WTF moment for her, probably. Just a whole lot of “I just wanted to look at some airplanes today” feelings.

Hal is gearing up for a fight against John Poopypants Stewart, but the entity within fights back. Quite literally. “We are the Spectre. And this fight is not ours. Vengeance calls. Victims cry out for justice.”

Hal is like, go hang yourself in a Thai hotel bathroom with that nonsense, but the Spectre within him insists that the Spectre is needed elsewhere and not at all here, actually. And while John Stewart continues exploding members of his own team, Hal disappears into an ethereal Spectre-ly shroud of green gas with the same scary portent as earlier: Parallax is coming. Parallax is coming.

Yeah. In its pants.

Listen, we need to see what the hell is going on with Guy Gardner. He looks like he’s in really rough shape. Everyone point and laugh!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

Stop being such a pansy, Guy. And please, for the love of God, find your regular eyeballs.

Here’s what’s complicating things: While Guy Gardner is writhing in what I can only assume is horny agony, Green Arrow’s defunct ring starts burning hot. It then duplicates itself, and the duplicate flies onto Guy’s middle finger. Yes, I did just write all that and it is what happened. His real, actual middle finger! I kid you not. That’s the bird!

The Watchtower becomes awash in an awful, sickly green light. Nothing good will come of this. It better not, or the story is already over!

The Parallax is Coming.

Guy feels reinvigorated!

The Parallax is Coming.

Guy’s looking pretty spry right now!

The Parallax is Coming.

Shit, what’s going on with Guy. This ain’t like him! Maybe. I personally don’t know, I just met him an issue ago and he seems like a bit of a piece of shit to me. J’onn “Martian Manhunter” Magoo is all sorts of “are you okkkkkkk??”, but Guy has a ring now and he blasts the room to smithereens!

“Beware my power.”

Guy shows off his glowing ring. He looks fresh as a daisy, much to everyone’s chagrin!

Remember about 100 years ago when those two kids found Kyle Rayner all fucked up at Highway Mill? Rayner’s ring keeps informing no one in particular that the Parallax, much like Winter, is coming. And these two ruffians are SICK TO DEATH HEARING ABOUT IT. Someone smash that goddamn ring to oblivion, please. It’s loud and annoying!

Rayner informs these ignorant scallywags that the ring is trying to warn everyone. “The weakness. The impurity.”

None of that matters right now. With a bright yellow glow and a FWOOOSH, a strang alien-type rhinoceros beast makes his fashionable appearance. He’s wearing his own Green Lantern costume, complete with sexy abs and a great glowing ring. Rayner tells the little shits to book it! This guy used to be an ally, but now he’s not! Eek! Etc.

This guy is named Kilowog and he’s a Bad Boy now. He was one of the strongest that the Corps had to offer! He taught everyone everything he knows! And now he’s a big ol’ jerk.

“Come on, ya poozer,” Kilowog says… rather daintily, actually, “let’s make this easy. Use the ring, Kyle.”

“No!”

Well, that’s that then. Oh, by the way, Kilowog trained Hal Jordan. That’s how good Kilowog is.

So these two dudes fight for a bit. The hearty, able-bodied Kilowog and the bleeding, broken-boned Kyle Rayner! I think that’s unfair. Someone should at least take a pipe to Kilowog’s kneecap to even the score a little bit.

“I said USE IT,” Kilowog snaps. Maybe he gets off on that sweet, sweet green light? He really wants Kyle’s light. Kyle’s light is some of that good, young light. Some of that jailbait light.

Kyle looks over at his wreckage and notices an exposed, open coffin. Oh fuck, not good. The skirmish must’ve jarred it open! He needs to close that quick before–

“Green Lantern of Sector 647. Kilowog of Bolovax Vik. You will lower your ring. And you will cease your actions immediately.”

Oh no. Oh no.

“The soul of Hal Jordan may reside within the Spectre…”

Oh no!

Green Lantern: Rebirth, Issue #2

And we will do to this body whatever it takes to… uh… heh heh… uhm… not sayin’…

Final Thoughts

What a mess! A giant cast of angry characters, some real power dynamics that are flippin’ and floppin’, and Hal Jordan is really taking his sad-sack dead dad energy to the limit. Lighten up, man, get some self-esteem.

The tale continues! See you next time you Green Lanternites!


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Bucketheadland Pike #2 – Empty Space

Bucketheadland Pike #2 - Empty Space

Released: July 14, 2011
Length: 32:00

“Comb and Wattles” gets weird with it right away, and not just because of the perplexing name. Fuzzing guitar that sounds like an engine revving, then some funky funk-ass bass, then some technical shredding, then some pulsing beats, then some nimble bass plucking, then some straight riffage, then I’m tired of typing about this track already! I don’t know what the “Wattles” part of the track title comes from, but I lived in a neighborhood growing up where one of the major adjacent roads was Wattles Rd. Maybe Buckethead visited my shitty hometown once?

Rooster Wattle

You sicken me, creep.

Oh no, he didn’t. Why would he? I looked that word up, and it’s the red thing that hangs down from a rooster’s neck. That gross thing. Those things are crazy. If I had one I’d get it caught in my zipper all the time. I’m always wearing things with zippers.

So far, Pike #2 aims to keep it diverse and energetic. The drumming around the riffs keeps switching up too, like it’s trying to keep up with whatever the fuck Buckethead decides to do every 15 seconds.

Ahh! The title track! Squishy, zappy electronic breakdowns with squealy and squeaky, very fast guitar tones. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with that cover art, but neither that image nor the track’s complete domination of filled-to-the-brim experimental riffage bring to mind anything I would even remotely call “empty space”. The cover art reminds me of two things: Jabu Jabu’s Belly from Zelda: Ocarina of Time, likely due to the stringy red shapes, and, for some reason MC Escher’s “Relativity” (that painting with all the crazy staircases going every which way). I don’t know why it reminds me of Escher, since the only stairway seen in the art isn’t too crazy. But it COULD be crazy, I guess. I don’t know, I’m just typing over here.

“Dummy Egg” has a deceptively mellow beginning, but then it goes nuts just like everything else in Empty Space. There are so many different musical ideas going on that it’s impossible to believe that Buckethead would make hundreds of these, and counting, for the next 11 years. Of course, maybe they really start sucking after #190. I’ve only been to #45, which isn’t even 15% of the total output! This motherfucker be nuts.

Les Claypool

Sorry, Les. There’s no room for you here.

“Pullets” brings back the funk. The funky stuff is always fun. Interesting that Les Claypool collaborated with Buckethead on a couple of projects, because much of the bass is very reminiscent of Primus. I’m pretty sure, though, that the entire Buckheatland Pike project is a solo effort. It’s like he holed himself up in his parents’ basement and beat those drums and flicked that bass and molested his guitar every day into the wee hours of the night! Except I think his parents might be dead now, and that made him very sad.

Heh heh! Sorry! More levity is coming right up. Just kidding. The phrase “empty space” reminds of one of the most terrifying concepts I’ve ever read about as a kid. Stephen King wrote a story about a futuristic method of teleportation travel called “jaunting”. Jaunting requires the travelers to be unconscious; it is known that conscious travel will result in the traveler being fully aware and awake for the duration of the trip. And the implication is that it will feel like billions of years in an empty void to the conscious traveler. So a kid holds his breath during the anesthesia process and experiences the near-eternity of conscious void livin’.

And that’s not even the worst part for me. The worst part was a story of a man who pushed his conscious wife into the machine and broke the teleporters so that she would be trapped conscious for a literal eternity. THAT is the one that fucked me up. There’s not enough rounds of 99 Bottles of Beer to get me through something like that.

Oh hey, the album’s over. See you next time!


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The Eye of the World (Book 1) – Chapter 34: “The Last Village”

The Wheel of Time - Book 1 - The Eye of the World

“The Last Village” must refer to the last stop Mat and Rand make before finally getting to Caemlyn. Perhaps their luck will turn around here in a big way, finding streets lined with brothels full of sultry young women who aren’t afraid to do anything do get paid in heron-hilt swords.

The two of them sleep in a haystack, which sounds exceedingly uncomfortable (especially with all the damn needles that they find within it!).

I forget the name of the village, but who cares. It’s the last village! Near the village inn, the duo overhears two men having a conversation. One (Almen Bunt) speaks to the innkeeper (Raimun Holdwin) about two young men, Darkfriends, who are making their way from village to village. One has stolen a heron-hilt sword (!). Bunt thinks this is a load of poppycock and intends to continue his current excursion to Caemlyn so he can take a good once-over on this so-called Dragon.

After their conversation is over, Rand approaches Bunt the Cunt and tells him “hey we’re going to Caemlyn too, heh heh heh, and we’re definitely not two young men who are Darkfriends making our way from village to village with a heron-hilt sword (!)”, and Bunt agrees to take these dumb kids to the city.

This Bunt fellow is pretty talkative, going on and on about Queen Morgase and her advisor Elaida, an Aes Sedai. Some people say that Morgase is just a puppet with Elaida pulling the strings, but Bunt is a Queen’s man through and through. Poppycock! Too much poppycock today!

Rand is intrigued by this Elaida, and has the notion to look her up in the phone book if they can’t find Moiraine and Lan in Caemlyn. I have a feeling this will happen, because they made a point to bring it up! I’m onto you, Robert Jordan.

Rand has another dream about his friends being dead and a bird pecking out his eye, you know, the normal everyday stuff. He wakes up not a moment too soon! They’re in Caemlyn!

OK, I hope we start focusing on Perrin and Egwene again for a little bit. I know they’re not heading to Caemlyn anymore, but I’m tired of these two saps sapping around! Let’s go back to Nynaeve instead, now that I consider further. She’s still the best character and she’s only had about ten minutes of screentime.


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